


Deserted

by Person



Category: The Sandman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/pseuds/Person
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were times she felt as empty as the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deserted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elynross](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynross/gifts).



There was pain within and pain without and neither ever ceased.

There were times she felt as empty as the desert her beautiful land had become when last she'd seen it, devoid of anything but the sharp and shattered remains of all she had ever known.

There were times she felt as lonely as the desert, left in her cave where even the demons rarely bothered to stop in and torment her. None wished to risk that the star-eyed man who'd stolen her heart and stolen her world would rise within the Endless one once more and remember that he loved her; they wouldn't want to find themselves the focus of his wrath should he suddenly decide that he was displeased with anyone who had taken a too personal hand in her suffering.

And there were times when she was not alone, when the starkly black on white girl-who-was-not-a-girl stood outside of her cage and gifted her with the simple but nearly forgotten pleasure of conversation.

"I wish I could have said something to change his mind," she'd say, leaning back against the mercilessly hot stone that formed the cave as if the temperature were nothing and hooking her fingers together in front of her. Her tone was always so sincere that it was impossible to doubt she spoke the truth. "He just takes romance so _seriously_\--it's what happens when people everywhere spend so much time dreaming about perfect ideal love--and he's even worse about anyone not doing exactly what he thinks they should."

She would press herself as close as she could get against the bars imprisoning her. She wanted always to be closer to the sound of her words.

And, even after all that he had done, she still wished to hear of her love.

"All I can do is try and guilt him about it sometimes, but I don't know how much good it does. Feeling remorse would be too much like admitting he'd gone too far, and he's always too stubbornly sure that whatever he's decided to do must be right. I do love my little brother, but he can be a complete mule sometimes."

The not-a-girl would reach through the bars and touch her hair, her cheek. Her hand was cool and soft, and she could still remember what it had felt like to hold it.

"I _hope_ that will change one of these days. We _can_ change without cracking or dying; if you could have seen me a few millennia ago you'd know it. Just wait and I'm sure one day..." But she'd trailed off, always, not sounding so sure at all.

But she would close her eyes and press into that cool hand, comforted all the same. "Thank you, Grandmother," she would whisper in a voice as rough and dry as the desert, and for some little while her wait would not seem so difficult.


End file.
